Maybe the potential subs should be agreed before play? I know everyone wants to make sure the concussed players don’t feel pressured to play on when they shouldn’t but perhaps the sub shouldn’t bowl, or bat higher than 9. Always going to be potential for ‘advantage’ otherwise.
Buttler still accepted England should have won.
As for the WAshes, as nobody calls them, I am sure England cannot wait to get home. Australia utterly superior.
England’s men appear to be getting worse as well. You would think it was difficult to lose a T20 by 150 runs. Only one England batsman lasted more than seven deliveries. Pathetic.
My wife has been telling me to calm down and to stop listening to it. India were good though, but…
Luckily for me I went to visit some friends today and missed it. I think Abhishek was showing off a bit (), taking 2 for 3 after that knock was amazing.
It’s a period of evolution , watching some of the recent T20 games in South Africa there was a serious amount of passion on show . In England and Australia there may be a quiet passion for red ball cricket but not elsewhere
Sadly you are right. The game just chases popularity and money. I would rather watch a really good sport that is less popular than an inferior sport that is followed my millions. A naive view, I guess. In white ball cricket there is no necessity to take wickets in order to win.
So many stakeholders, so many mouths to feed and, let’s be clear, any consideration paid for the stakes in the franchises is an anticipation of future income streams, many of which don’t exist now e.g. digital rights, especially in Asia & the Indian sub-continent. Arguably, the ECB/franchises are taking VC-money? The Crown Jewel of August has been sold, the barbarians have been allowed through the front gates, and now we have to wait and see what comes. It’s not that dissimilar to when the FA Premier League was set-up, albeit that was founded on a much better TV deal.
One lens suggests the ECB and franchises have been very cute to ‘get money up-front’, another angle suggests they’ve simply grabbed cash and sold the soul of the game? Pick your poison.
What can be reliably said is that we’re moving to an all-year-around diet of T20 leagues, which cannot bode well for the red ball game.
Oh, I also hear the pay-parity subject has been raised again. Do me a favour…
And The Hundred has been a big success. Yes all the England limited overs teams (T20 and 50 over both M & W) are going backwards judging by results over the last couple of years, but it’s raised a load of money as the IPL teams buy in.
Has it though? Media reports I’ve read suggest the primary benefit has been in getting bums on seats (esp. for the women’s games), but the economics haven’t seen the desired levels of return (e.g. by overseas TV deals), and it’s notable overseas top-tier players haven’t rushed to participate as the rewards are relatively modest, allied to other T20 competitions over-lapping with it (or very close thereto). The money now on the table appears very much based on hope rather than solid expectation(?).
I can’t get my head around the justification for some of the headline valuations, as the money offered suggests the gross value of the franchises is way above £800m, and working on a minimum reward to equity of 10%, this would suggest returns would be min £80m p.a., spread around - but the current competition is nowhere near this (some suggestions are that it’s not far off break-even).
That was intended to be tongue in cheek, I was referring to the way all the England short form teams have gone backwards in recent years while the franchise owners made money from their equity sales.